Stano Lawyers Work To Stop Execution

TITUSVILLE — With an execution date less than two weeks away, attorneys for killer Gerald Stano will begin a last-ditch effort Sunday to spare his life.

Gov. Bob Graham signed Stano's first death warrant last month. Stano is set to be executed July 2 for murdering a Port Orange teen-ager in 1973. The former Ormond Beach short-order cook has received three death sentences and seven life sentences for the murders of 10 women.

This week Brevard Circuit Judge Gilbert Goshorn, who sentenced Stano to death for the 1973 murder, set a hearing for 10 a.m. Sunday to hear requests to halt his execution although defense attorneys said they needed more time.

Assistant State Attorney Jim Graham argued that an extension would only delay the appeal process and allow defense attorneys to ''unilaterally veto the death warrant.''

If Goshorn denies their request, defense attorneys will go before the Florida Supreme Court Thursday to argue for a stay of execution. The court upheld the sentence in July 1985 and in November denied a request to hear the case again.

Stano, who has confessed to as many as 41 slayings in three states, was convicted in 1983 of stabbing to death 17-year-old Cathy Lee Scharf of Port Orange and dumping her body on the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

In March his attorneys requested his death sentence be commuted to life so psychologists could study him to learn more about serial murderers. Graham denied the request.

In court records filed this week in Brevard Circuit Court, Stano's state- appointed attorney, Larry Spalding, requested Goshorn delay the Sunday hearing because it would be impossible to investigate the case by then.

Goshorn refused Friday to delay the hearing, but he gave attorneys until 9 a.m. Sunday to file requests to stop the execution.